Tragic suicide

[Ramblingnamechanger]

Channel four news spent long time talking about the suicide of a young person ( male ) who killed themself because of not receiving gender affirming surgery when they wanted it. Obviously distraught parents seemed to think that that should have had whatever it was, affirming their son was their daughter and interviewer calling them she throughout.nothing about treating the depression which was underlying. Did not touch the area of what exactly GAS is. I have no idea what they meant…the only thing that was interesting was that they were discharged at 18 from the gender identity clinic, because of depression ( I think that was stated), Would this now be a counter indication for surgeries I wonder?

Oh, I can't link to their crowdfunder, of course. I'll copy and paste the text here:

'We need your help to take the trans healthcare case to the Court of Appeal

We want to support an appeal against the High Court judgment which rejected our attempt to tackle the extreme waiting times faced by trans people seeking help from NHS England.
Permission has been granted to appeal the decision, and – significantly – we have been told there is a ‘real prospect’ that the Court of Appeal may reach a different conclusion. But we need your help to support the co-claimants in the case to take this important next step.

England is an international outlier when it comes to trans healthcare – and not in a good way.

The NHS has a duty to see 92% of those referred to specialist healthcare services within 18 weeks, yet the average waiting time for young transgender people is nearly three years, and many adults face waits of four years or more.
This cannot continue unchecked, and that’s why we and five co-claimants went to the High Court last year to argue that these waiting times, and other failures in trans healthcare services, are discriminatory and unlawful. The court did not agree – but still we think that the waiting times are unlawful.
Unusually, the judge who made the initial decision gave permission to appeal, without referring the case up to the Court of Appeal to make the decision.
In giving permission to appeal, he said that there was a ‘real prospect that the Court of Appeal might differ from the reasoning at [91]-[99] of my judgment’ and that ‘the point is of sufficient general importance to justify consideration by the Court of Appeal.’

We need your support to help take this case to the Court of Appeal. We are hugely grateful for the support we have received so far. Without the generous donations from members of the public, it would not have been possible for us to take on this important case.

But we can’t continue this work without your support. The estimated costs in the High Court will exceed the net sum we have raised by £168,000. As things stand we have to bear those ourselves.

If you are in a position to donate, any amount big or small would be greatly appreciated.

Details

You can read more about our attempt to tackle the extreme waiting times faced by trans people seeking help from NHS England here.
The appellants have instructed Thomas de la Mare KC (who has replaced David Lock KC since the previous stage following David’s retirement), Jason Pobjoy and Rook Irwin Sweeney to act for it. They are acting at significantly below market rates.

10% of the sums raised will go to Good Law Project so that we can continue to use the law to create a better, fairer, and greener future for the UK.

Thanks to everyone who donated and the many more who helped us spread the word, we have been able to meet our £50,000 initial target to support this important case, which will be heard at the Court of Appeal on July 11 and 12.

As the appeal is now costing £10,000 more than we hoped it would, we are now raising towards a £60,000 stretch target. If you are in a position to donate, any amount big or small would be greatly appreciated.

10% of the funds raised will be a contribution to the general running costs of Good Law Project. It is our policy only to raise sums that we reasonably anticipate could be spent on the work we are crowdfunding for. However, if there is a surplus it will go to develop and support further work we do to fight for a better fairer future for all.'

Crowdfunder closed, having raised over £70k, in July.

Updated:

'This case was dismissed in July 2023 [link to blog]. The claimants, supported by Good Law Project and following advice from our lawyers, will not be applying for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. While it’s the end of the road for this case, we stand in solidarity with members of the trans community fighting for better access to healthcare. We will continue to do what we can to support trans and non-binary people to live their lives free from inequality.
We are incredibly grateful to the thousands of you who chipped in to support this important case, showing how many of us agree that everyone should be able to access the healthcare they need.'

This is really sad. No-one should feel that this is the only way out.

Children constantly receive these messages that 'living as a woman/man' means something to do with the sex of your body, while women are told that living as a woman/man has nothing to do with the sex of your body.

If only we as a society could agree what a woman/man is I genuinely think there'd be less confusion, and fewer people using this confusion to tell kids their bodies are wrong.

I mean even calling body-changing surgery "gender-affirming" seems like a transphobic thing to say? Your gender is affirmed (validated, seen as correct) if you have a particular type of body? Why isn't your gender just the way you feel, who you are inside?

It's really heartbreaking to hear the family talk. Poor people, what a tragedy to live with.

'the waiting lists by now for, um, the gender identity clinic were five, six, maybe seven years, and I do question whether her realizing that was one of the factors that that made her life so unbearable'. - AL's mother.

This was the third suicide attempt made, it seems. So life had presumably already seemed unbearable.

'we're hoping that it will have a broader scope to to prevent future deaths
because we can't get Alice back, but something has to be done to change government policy to change societal society's outlook.'

It is unclear what the suggestion is that will 'prevent future deaths', presumably more money being spent on 'gender affirming care' i.e. drugs and surgery.

This is a grieving family that need support and counselling. The entire issue seems to be part of a mental health crisis that is spiralling out of control. And the attempts to suggest this has nothing to do with mental health are not helpful, imo, to anyone involved.

All three instances of suicide in my family (an uncle, a cousin, a cousin's husband) happened against a background of inadequate mental health support - family members frantically trying to contact professionals out of hours without success. No gender angle in any case.

Separate from the anorectic cousins, one who survived, one who didn't - again, getting MS support was a constant battle.

There seems to be a strong strand of lack of mental health provision throughout the accounts of gender-committed young people. That's the scandal IMO.

Wary of trying to talk about this as I do not want to add to the raft of very poor talk about suicide pouring from a political movement with an agenda, but my understanding of statistics is that there are other groups of children with significantly higher levels of risk, including Autism and Anorexia. However these children appear to lack the representation, political clout or political usefulness to be raised up in awareness to the same degree, giving the impression that this is the only group at risk and in a way totally disproportionate and more extreme than any other.

This alongside the very carefully spun reporting with certain facts being suppressed to avoid the general public believing what would be most politically useful for them to believe, is increasingly worrying.

What is possibly needed is expert organisations talking about this, rather than just pressure groups and political lobbying organisations.

Children's mental health - everyone's mental health - needs proper care. Frood is quite correct that it is a broad and complex issue that needs sensitive and informed approaches from government and the NHS.

Unfortunately trust that these bodies will use evidence and logic to make the most effective decisions and inform policy is low.

I suspect many GPs and local CAMHS referred young people to gender clinics because they believed they’d be getting the counselling they used to get, years of it, exploring all the aspects behind their dysphoria. When in fact all GIDS was interested in was the dysphoria, with all their other problems ignored and/or not assessed.

Adult Mental Health Services were involved but it seems Alice was dissatisfied with their approach and disengaged. The reasons given are relevant.

Copy and paste from my earlier post:

iNews has details about the mental health care provided by CAHMS and the local adult mental health service but no mention that hormones were supplied privately by Gender GP (Helen Webberley's online outfit):

"Trans woman who took own life after three years waiting for NHS appointment was failed by system, mother says"
https://inews.co.uk/news/trans-woman-took-own-life-three-years-waiting-nhs-appointment-failed-system-mother-2625872

Archive: https://archive.ph/N6BHV

In the Brighton Argus, mum Dr Caroline Litman seems to suggest Alice's dissatisfaction with both CAHMS and the adult mental health service was that they did not expedite access to hormones but were concerned instead about mental health issues. No mention that hormones were supplied by Gender GP.

"Brighton: Mother of Alice Litman says healthcare system failed her"
https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/23797787.brighton-mother-alice-litman-says-healthcare-system-failed/

Haven't read the whole thread so apologies if it's already been mentioned, there is a judicial review pending regarding the transition to adult services and the need to protect teenagers moving into the adult service.

I think we aren't allowed links to petitions.
The title is :

Help us hold the NHS to account for providing unsafe treatment for young people with gender dysphoria
And can be found on Democracy 3.0

I Anna Castle and Ms C are planning to bring a judicial review against the NHS for providing unsafe treatment advice for young people from 17 years old and vulnerable adults. Hundreds of 17 year olds are referred to the adult service each year – more than any other age group.

We are two mothers whose stories are remarkably similar (although we have never met)
• We are the mothers of teenage daughters (16 and 17 years old) who felt they were lesbians.
• Our daughters are neurodiverse – autism and ADHD
• Our daughters have both self-harmed
• During lockdown our daughters accessed trans activist websites
• During lockdown our daughters felt they were born in the wrong body and sought medical transition
• We were shut out of the medical process as we had concerns about medical transition and our daughter’s vulnerabilities
• Our daughters are on the waiting list for medical treatment
• Our daughters no longer live with us but with their affirming fathers.

We are the mothers of teenage daughters (16 and 17 years old) who felt they were lesbians

Not sure how this is about the OP case, as it was nothing to do with being lesbian. It was about a young male who wanted to transition to female. And in the news reports I have read no mention has been made of a lesbian identity.

Although can see, even though from a different perspective, the core issue of access to services and how or when a young person should be transfered to adult services should be managed.

Because the girls who originally thought of themselves as lesbian now think they need to transition.

Thank you.

So there was mental health support in place. And Alice was taking hormones.

I am struggling to see how this is being
blamed on the NHS, to be honest.

It may also be worth linking this to the thread about the Australian policy regarding conversion therapy, meaning that where agencies are afraid of getting it wrong, and working with clients where it's very difficult to do right for doing wrong, the natural behaviour will be to pass the client on to someone else and avoid getting involved through not wanting to end up the source of criticism or worse.

"I am struggling to see how this is being blamed on the NHS, to be honest."

I hope the family are receiving psychological support to help them through their bereavement and grief.

There are clues, sometimes in direct quotes from family members, scattered across different press reports suggesting the family intervened in ways they thought would best compensate for real or perceived failings of the NHS. I hope for the sake of truth that all the facts are explored by the inquest but, if they are, then it might be hard for the family to bear.

The role of the Good Law Project in exploiting and weaponising this family's grief is despicable. It requires the family to blame the NHS.

While the family are grateful to the Good Law Project, it is hard not to see them as pawns, used by the Fox Killer to champion a crusade in which he is personally invested.

Will he still support them if the inquest finds that NHS provision was not a factor, in that the family arranged and paid for equivalent private provision? That would be an extremely inconvenient outcome as far as the argument for "life saving gender-affirming care on the NHS" is concerned.

https://www.papyrus-uk.org/suicide-bereavement-support/

The role of the Good Law Project in exploiting and weaponising this family's grief is despicable.

Absolutely agree with this. It's exploitation of the most abhorrent kind. They've used this as a fundraising exercise.

The role of the Good Law Project in exploiting and weaponising this family's grief is despicable.

I hadn't realised they were involved though had wondered how they had got so much media coverage.

I would have had more respect for the intentions of GLP if they hadn't sought publicity but had supported the family through the inquest process.

And than comment afterwards.

Now they have politicised the process.

So many of these so called justice projects are nearly always nothing more than the personal projects of individuals who think they are better than all of use.

Yes, exactly this.

I've just been listening to the family talk in the video that ArabellaScott posted 😔😔😔😔😔 It's such an awful tragedy to lose a family member to suicide. But this is being used a political tool to push an agenda, amplified by the news outlets. If the information in the family video is taken at face value, at no point was anyone advocating for Alice to have mental health support to understand why Alice was dysphoric: a differential diagnosis could unpick, without the lens of gender, what felt wrong for Alice by listening to the issues Alice was facing and discussing each in depth . Instead, it sounds like every step of Alice's journey was affirmative, so the wait for treatment that would continue the affirmation became the issue. To quote @ArabeIIaScott

This is a grieving family that need support and counselling. The entire issue seems to be part of a mental health crisis that is spiralling out of control. And the attempts to suggest this has nothing to do with mental health are not helpful, imo, to anyone involved.

I really can't understand how IPSO and Ofcom haven't stepped in. I appreciate both rely on complaints being raised to do this but if anyone has tried to raise complaints on this subject with either body, they'll be aware of the "computer says no" default answer. For example, IPSO's initial response on any suicide reporting issue is that if the complainant isn't a family member or representative of someone who is directly impacted, the complaint can't be processed. This leaves the bizarre situation where the press is able to push the narrative on the cause of this tragedy unchallenged. Yes, we absolutely need a free press but with that freedom comes a responsibility to be impartial. This reporting is anything but.

Unfortunately for the family, I suspect any impartial (this is the key bit) inquest will find that Alice was not let down by the NHS on lack of access to gender affirming care. If they dig deep enough, questions may be asked on why Alice wasn't put in to a mental health pathway in the meantime. That's likely to be a very tricky subject to unpick because many health professionals have been trained to affirm anyone's gender identity belief as a truth. So if the NHS ends up "on trial" for this approach, that's a whole different kind of enquiry.

Apologies @Bosky and @Froodwithatowel , this was the comment I was trying to link with what I wrote above.

I think actually Alice had been receiving mental health care but was unhappy with it.

As far as I can make out the complaint leveled at the NHS is that surgery wasn't happening fast enough.